Walkerville 10 9 def Broadview 8 8

Our toughest game all year by a long way. Broadview are a good unit. They play a very similar style of football to us and, in the first half, were more committed at most contests than we were. They had a very dangerous full forward, who had opportunity too often in the first half because they moved the ball quickly into the space ahead of him. We were getting numbers to the ground ball but simply weren’t winning the ball often enough and this meant we put our backline under way too much pressure.

In the third quarter it started to turn as our boys kept persisting. Daniel Costalonga, with height to match the Broadview Full Forward, closed him out of the game and examples were set by the likes of Callum Wilkie, as he put his head fearlessly over the ball, and Henry Lodge, who stuck a tackle on an opponent twice his size.

Come the last quarter our on-ballers set us up out of the middle and the goals came with great forward pressure and some excellent finishing. We swung a couple of unscripted changes to keep fresh, fast legs out there and to create even more forward threat, and the job was done.

Congratulations to the lads. Today they won a game that they might have let slip, if they had given in to the weight of pressure from a committed opposition and some curious umpiring. It was a testament to their discipline and preparedness to dig deep, qualities that will be needed again next Sunday when we play Payneham!

See you at training boys.

Goal Kickers:Callum Wilkie, Adam Gwinnett 3, Zeb Cunningham-Brown, James Duncan, Max  Marslen, Nick Wundke 1

Best players: James Duncan, Patrick Farrugia, Callum Wilkie, Harrison Wigg, Venkha Sivashanker, Cameron Pritchard, Adam Gwinnett, James Serotzki, Harry Hayward

Awards: Callum Wilkie, Max Marslen, Patrick Farrugia